In celebration of Iron Maiden's phenomenal 25 year history and in
keeping with the recent International chart success of their Double DVD
'The Early Years', EMI are very proud to announce the release of 'The
Number of The Beast' as a single on 3rd January, 2005.

The title track of the band’s third ( and first No 1 !!) album, this
single was a Top 20 hit when originally released in 1982, and is rightly
regarded as an all time Maiden classic. This song typifies the bands
sound signature of that era, from the chilling spoken introduction to
the throat ripping opening scream from Bruce Dickinson. The single will
be released in three very special limited Edition formats, featuring
never before available live recordings from the Clive Burr Charity shows
at Brixton Academy in March 2002.

The news of the single release follows the spectacular reaction to the
announcement of live shows for next Summer. In Scandinavia 88,000
tickets sold within hours, with 51,000 sold out in 2 1/2 hrs for
Gothenburg's Ullevi Stadium, 22,000 sold out in a day for Helsinki's
Hartwall Arena ( 2 shows) and 15 ,000 tickets first day for Oslo
Spectrum (also 2 shows) Also recently on sale is the show at Paris Parc
Des Princes Stadium on 25th June. To satisfy insatiable Maiden fans, an
official UK travel agent has been appointed to arrange official Maiden
parties to the Paris show, with privileged access made available to the
members of the fan club.

In response to repeated requests over the years, special limited edition
prints of the original 'Number of The Beast' album artwork signed by
artist Derek Riggs will be sold through Eddies Megastore. In true Maiden
style, their fan club members will have first access to the prints,

The single is to be released on January 3rd 2005 across three formats
including an Enhanced CD, and limited Edition 7 Inch Coloured Vinyl with
free calendar poster and 12 Inch Picture Disc, all with the very special
catalogue number of EM 666.

The full content is -

ENHANCED CD
1 - The Number Of The Beast (Original Version)
2 - The Number of The Beast - Live At Brixton - Recorded March 2002
Brixton Academy
3 - Hallowed Be Thy Name - live At Brixton - Recorded March 20th 2002
Brixton Academy
Plus
4 - Enhanced Video - Original Promo video Number Of The Beast (Camp
Chaos Version)
5 - Enhanced Video - Number of The Beast - live At Brixton - Filmed and
recorded March 2002.

7 Inch Limited Edition Coloured Vinyl, with calendar poster
Side A - The Number of The Beast (Original Version)
Side B - The Number Of The Beast - Live At Brixton 2002

12 Inch Limited Edition Picture Disc
Side A
Track 1 - The Number of The Beast (Original Version)
Track 2 - The Number of The Beast - live At Brixton 2002
Side B
Track 1 - Remember Tomorrow - Live (Original B Side from 1982 single)

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19/10/2004 IRON
MAIDEN ON THE ROAD NEXT SUMMER FOR A HELL OF A TOUR!

Iron Maiden will be back on the road touring in Europe next summer with a
series of Stadium and Festival headline shows.

The full routing is in the final stages but the first three shows are
announced now as they go on sale very soon. These are the 50,000 capacity Parc
Des Princes Stadium, Paris on June 25th , the 55,000 capacity Ullevi
Stadium, Gothenburg on July 9th and Hartwall Arena, Helsinki
on July 6th. Support will be announced at a later date.

As manager Rod Smallwood explains; “The new double DVD, The Early
Days, covers the period of the first four classic albums – Iron
Maiden, Killers, Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind – and this gives
us a fantastic opportunity to give the fans a set with lots of material
from those great albums. Every time we announce a tour there's wide
speculation among the fans as to which songs will be performed and it's
always hard to please everyone as they all have their personal favorites
but this time we're going to be including some songs which we haven't
played for quite some time which I'm sure will get our fans very excited.

This tour round Europe will be the biggest we have ever done in terms of
the number of fans we will play to so we want to make it very special. We
are taking these first four albums and tours as the theme for the
Production of the show and will be featuring some of the ideas
incorporated in the early days of the band, particularly on The Beast on
the Road Tour and the World Piece Tour. However everything will be state
of the art on the technical side of screens, lights and PA. This is going
to be huge and a unique treat for our fans….and anyone else!!!”

Says Bruce Dickinson, ”The Dance of Death Tour' was a very theatrical
stage set and performance but this will be back to a full on Metal
spectacular. We've always put everything, physically and mentally, into
our stage shows and this will be no exception. People are back into REAL
live music now and we want to make sure that the Maiden shows are never
surpassed and an incredible experience for everyone there! It's going to
be a lot fun.'

Tickets are available from the following retail and online outlets from
the on sale dates listed for each date and we suggest to avoid
disappointment that fans order early. During the last two tours some of
the biggest shows were sold out in just a few hours so we recommend
checking local radio and press and the official Iron Maiden website often.
Members of the Fan Club Iron Maiden FC should also check this for regular
updates on Fan Club privileges around ticket purchases.

More dates will be being announced shortly as and when they are confirmed
and fans should regularly check here for tour updates, news and links
where to be best able to buy tickets.

“The History Of IRON MAIDEN - Part 1; The Early Days” Double
DVD is to be released on Monday 8th November on EMI appropriately almost
exactly 25 years to the day since the band first signed to the British
label.

‘The Early Days’ is a unique collection of archive material packed
onto 2 DVD’s that covers the beginnings of the band’s career from
the struggle to get gigs in East End pubs through to becoming within
just 5 years a band capable of headlining arenas anywhere around the
World and achieving this without any radio support to speak of at any
time.

This isn’t simply a band history but more the intense and personal
voyage of a remarkable group of individuals who shared one vision and
worked hard to achieve that goal without any compromises along the way.
It also demonstrates the band’s unique relationship with their fans,
the foundation for which was laid right back then …at the beginning.

The first DVD contains nearly 2 hours of archive Maiden live concert
rarities that demonstrate the energy and power that propelled them to
the forefront of World Metal

The first program of DVD1 is Maiden’s first ever concert video ‘Live
at The Rainbow’ which was produced by EMI back in 1980 shortly after
they were signed and was one of the first ever concert VHS releases.
This title has not been widely available for some time so fans can now
see the band fronted by Paul Di’Anno singing such classics as
‘Killers’ and ‘Phantom Of the Opera’ .

The rest of the footage on DVD1 consists of two shows neither of which
has ever been fully available. Beast Over Hammersmith was filmed at the
beginning of the Beast On the Road tour that to many fans at the time
was the first introduction to Bruce Dickinson. Songs like “Hallowed be
Thy Name“ and “Number of The Beast” have proved to become regular
features in the Maiden live set since this was first recorded in 1982
and now thanks to some modern reconstructive work fans can enjoy the
highlights from this rare footage.

To complete the first disk is ‘Live At Dortmund’, a massive concert
in Dortmund in December 1983 originally filmed for German TV with Maiden
headlining a stellar Metal bill as part of their World Piece Tour.
Originally the show was broadcast live across Europe but has not been
seen since until now. Research into the footage shows that all the
original film has since been destroyed so this is truly now a rare piece
of Maiden history.

The documentary which forms the basis for the title contains over 90
minutes of extraordinary interviews with the colourful cast of
characters involved with Maiden over this early period - current band
members, a whole host of ex band members, managers, agents, journalists,
photographers, EMI execs past and present, crew, promoters, fans - all
of whom have their own perspective of the events and process that led up
Maiden’s Worldwide success, and the fun and hard work involved.

It chronicles their early struggles in the mid to late 70’s in
London’s East End where the hardest thing was just keeping a line-up
together for more than a couple of pub gigs, through the early successes
of their eponymous debut album and “Killers”, their first World
Tours, the colossal impact on the Rock World that was “The Number of
the Beast” and through to the end of their first full headlining World
Tour - 'Piece of Mind' - in 1983.

A very honest and revealing (but also entertaining) insight into just
what it was like early on in the World of Eddie and Maiden, its also a
guide book to the problems faced and attitude and talent needed to get a
band off the ground and to the pinnacle of Worldwide success - and then
to keep it there!!! It is a fascinating and compelling story for any
music fan.

Also on Disk 2 is a 30 min TV Documentary by LWT shown in 1980 on the
rise of Heavy Metal featuring the band and footage of them performing at
The Marquee in 1979 and an insight into the new breed of music fan that
arose out of the ashes of the punk era.

Possibly one of the rarest items on The Early Days is a 45 minute home
video recorded by the band of them performing at The Ruskin Arms in East
London. This footage was originally feared lost forever however by
complete chance a surviving copy was found in Steve's Harris' home and
the delicate tape was processed and now included in it's entirety. With
the exception of a very short clip used in 12 Wasted Years this has
never been seen by anyone except the band themselves making it such a
rare gem for the collector.

Extras include rare TV appearances like their first 'Live' performance
on Top Of The Pops and Rock and Pop on German TV, Special photo gallery
revealing never before seen personal pictures taken by the band and crew
and a thorough overview and detail of all the bands artwork, tour
programmes and imagery both on tour and their studio releases, plus of
course some hidden goodies.

“The Early Days” is the first of what will eventually become a
series of DVD's to be released over the coming years. Each release will
extensively cover a period of the bands career to become a collection of
not only re-mastered footage but also previously unavailable and unseen
material taken directly from the bands own personal collections, along
with extensive interviews.

Says Steve Harris, 'We haven't had any of our original live videos
available for some time so when we started looking at this project we
thought lets make each DVD a real document of not only the shows but
everything around that time. Everybody has been digging through the
archives to make this the most complete it can possibly be and I’m
really proud of the end result. A lot of the footage we’d thought had
been lost for good like the home video of the Ruskin Arms. Both disks
contain some real collectors stuff. For example we filmed the first
Hammersmith Odeon shows with Bruce but because of various lighting
issues we never felt that it was really good enough to use. It just
never really captured the excitement of show or the spectacle that it
was - but by the time it was on film we could do nothing about it.
However with technology being what it is now we've revisited and
repaired some of the problems with the original masters to get it to a
point where we can finally keep our fans happy by making it
available.”

'I have to say that I've really had a lot of fun recalling the early
beginnings and we've managed to interview just about everybody who was
ever part of Maiden from the very first line up in 1975 through to the
band that everyone knows now. I found things I thought I had lost over
the years and sometimes the smallest thing can remind you of exactly why
you started doing this in the first place and the struggle everyone went
through. I think the fans are going to love this.'

Plans are currently being put together for Iron Maiden play some
festival and stadium dates next summer and bring the 'Early Days' back
to life. The band will be linking in the look and feel of their
beginnings in the stage set as well as performing some classic tracks
from that time which haven’t been heard live for a while!!. Dates will
start to be announced in the near future

Says manager Rod Smallwood, 'On reviewing all these great shows it just
reminded us all of the great songs that the band have in their
repertoire. It's always difficult when touring a new album to include
too many of the older songs which the fans always ask for as the band
would end up playing for 4 or 5 hours! The plan for next year is to
recreate the power and energy and look of their early shows and
eventually continue this idea with each subsequent DVD release.'

The next in series will be the spectacular 'Live After Death' which will
cover the bands legendary four sold out shows at Long Beach Arena in
1984.

Live At The Rainbow – 1981 (35 mins)
Ides Of March
Wrathchild
Killers
Remember Tomorrow
Transylvania
Phantom Of The Opera
Iron Maiden

Live At Hammersmith 1982 - Beast On The Road (45 mins)
Murders in The Rue Morgue
Run to The Hills
Children Of The Damned
Number Of The Beast
22 Acacia Avenue
Total Eclipse
The Prisoner
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Iron Maiden

Live at Rock & Pop Festival 1983 Dortmund - World Piece Tour
(35 mins)
Sanctuary
The Trooper
Revelations
Flight Of Icarus
22 Acacia Avenue
Number Of The Beast
Run To The Hills

Live at The Ruskin Arms – 1980 (40 mins)
Sanctuary
Wrathchild
Prowler
Remember Tomorrow
Running Free
Transylvania
Another Life
Phantom Of The Opera
Charlotte the Harlot

Extras (40 mins)Live on Top Of the Pops – Running Free and Women In Uniform

Live on Rock and Pop – Germany TV – Running Free
Promo videos – Women In Uniform / Run To The Hills / Number Of The
Beast/ Flight Of Icarus / The Trooper